ok ok the story
Just woke up. Fuck I LOVE my bed!
Ok... I'm heading home from a party, and I'm about two blocks from my house, and I get pulled over for supposedly speeding, which I was not (ok I was going 45 in a 35, and the cop said I was probably going 60, but it was very obvious he didn't radar me). I tell the cop I had a few beers earlier so he starts going through all the standard drunk tests.
Usually drunk tests consist of 3 or so stupid things you have to do to prove you're not drunk right? The cop tells me if I pass all the tests and the breathalyser that I can be on my way. As I pass each test with flying colors, he keeps making up more and more tests to try to get me to fail. I must've gone through 10 ridiculous hop-on-one-foot-and-tap-blah-blah-fingers-together-and-count-backwards-from-30-and-blah-blah-blah tests. Finally, he busts out the breathalyser, and I blow a .07. (For those of you who don't know, the legal limit here is .08).
I was very very very polite during the entire ordeal, but I know after I blew that .07 I had a shit-eating grin on my face, hah! The cop seems pretty frustrated at this point, and asks me if he can search my vehicle, and I adamantly say no. He starts asking me to explain why, and I tell him I don't feel he has probable cause as he pulled me over for speeding and I am not legally drunk, and that I won't allow it. We go back and forth about it a bit and I stand my ground.
When they initially searched me, one of the things I had on me was my pocket knife. When the vehicle search topic comes up and I don't back down, he tells me he can arrest me for having my knife. I tell him the knife is legal, and he starts in on the "don't tell me what's legal" lecture. I finally tell him "if you are going to arrest me for my legal knife just so you have the right to search my vehicle, go for it." (For those of you who don't know California vehicle search laws, the driver has to give an officer permission to search their vehicle, unless they are under arrest, in which case the officer is within his rights to perform a search without consent).
At this point, I get cuffed and put in the back of the vehicle, and the two cops (a second cooler one had shown up during the drunk test) are very obviously having a "dude, you shouldn't arrest her for this knife" conversation. The first cop comes back and opens the door and starts in on the "I was trying to be nice and you refused to cooperate" lecture and I tell him I feel I was threatened that I was being put under arrest for not consenting for the vehicle search, and that the knife is obviously an excuse. He tries a bit more to get me to consent, and I finally say something along the lines of "Look you are obviously arresting me because you want to search my vehicle, and this is the only way you can legally search my vehicle. We both know that, and this conversation is over."
So he searches my vehicle, finds nothing, and the second cool cop offers to park my truck around the corner so it won't get towed, which I thank both cops very politely for. I get taken downtown and tossed in the drunk tank, and I get out 8-10 hours later and take a bus home. The bus just happens to run directly from the jail to a couple blocks from my house, where my truck is parked. And it also happens to run every 15 minutes even on a Sunday for some reason. So 2 bucks and 20 minutes after I get out, I'm home :)
So- the part about false arrest. Here is a good page on california penal code 653k, which is what I was arrested under. And here is my knife. It is extremely obvious that my knife does NOT fall under 653k, and I was falsely arrested. I'm pretty sure the cop knew this too and just didn't want to back down, because when we got to the jail I asked him if my knife was going to an evidence room and how might I be able to get it back, and he says it will end up at the police station and I can go in and see if they'll give it back. If it was so fucking illegal, how the fuck would the police station give it back to me anyway?
There's a little more to the story but that's coming up in a more filtered post.
Ok... I'm heading home from a party, and I'm about two blocks from my house, and I get pulled over for supposedly speeding, which I was not (ok I was going 45 in a 35, and the cop said I was probably going 60, but it was very obvious he didn't radar me). I tell the cop I had a few beers earlier so he starts going through all the standard drunk tests.
Usually drunk tests consist of 3 or so stupid things you have to do to prove you're not drunk right? The cop tells me if I pass all the tests and the breathalyser that I can be on my way. As I pass each test with flying colors, he keeps making up more and more tests to try to get me to fail. I must've gone through 10 ridiculous hop-on-one-foot-and-tap-blah-blah-fingers-together-and-count-backwards-from-30-and-blah-blah-blah tests. Finally, he busts out the breathalyser, and I blow a .07. (For those of you who don't know, the legal limit here is .08).
I was very very very polite during the entire ordeal, but I know after I blew that .07 I had a shit-eating grin on my face, hah! The cop seems pretty frustrated at this point, and asks me if he can search my vehicle, and I adamantly say no. He starts asking me to explain why, and I tell him I don't feel he has probable cause as he pulled me over for speeding and I am not legally drunk, and that I won't allow it. We go back and forth about it a bit and I stand my ground.
When they initially searched me, one of the things I had on me was my pocket knife. When the vehicle search topic comes up and I don't back down, he tells me he can arrest me for having my knife. I tell him the knife is legal, and he starts in on the "don't tell me what's legal" lecture. I finally tell him "if you are going to arrest me for my legal knife just so you have the right to search my vehicle, go for it." (For those of you who don't know California vehicle search laws, the driver has to give an officer permission to search their vehicle, unless they are under arrest, in which case the officer is within his rights to perform a search without consent).
At this point, I get cuffed and put in the back of the vehicle, and the two cops (a second cooler one had shown up during the drunk test) are very obviously having a "dude, you shouldn't arrest her for this knife" conversation. The first cop comes back and opens the door and starts in on the "I was trying to be nice and you refused to cooperate" lecture and I tell him I feel I was threatened that I was being put under arrest for not consenting for the vehicle search, and that the knife is obviously an excuse. He tries a bit more to get me to consent, and I finally say something along the lines of "Look you are obviously arresting me because you want to search my vehicle, and this is the only way you can legally search my vehicle. We both know that, and this conversation is over."
So he searches my vehicle, finds nothing, and the second cool cop offers to park my truck around the corner so it won't get towed, which I thank both cops very politely for. I get taken downtown and tossed in the drunk tank, and I get out 8-10 hours later and take a bus home. The bus just happens to run directly from the jail to a couple blocks from my house, where my truck is parked. And it also happens to run every 15 minutes even on a Sunday for some reason. So 2 bucks and 20 minutes after I get out, I'm home :)
So- the part about false arrest. Here is a good page on california penal code 653k, which is what I was arrested under. And here is my knife. It is extremely obvious that my knife does NOT fall under 653k, and I was falsely arrested. I'm pretty sure the cop knew this too and just didn't want to back down, because when we got to the jail I asked him if my knife was going to an evidence room and how might I be able to get it back, and he says it will end up at the police station and I can go in and see if they'll give it back. If it was so fucking illegal, how the fuck would the police station give it back to me anyway?
There's a little more to the story but that's coming up in a more filtered post.